A Couple Travelers By The Numbers: December’13 Income – $9,610

December was a pretty slow month for income and we actually dropped about half from November – wow! This was largely due to the holidays, as we work mostly with European companies and they tend to take several weeks off during the holidays. On the one hand, it’s good to see that even in a “bad” month we still were close to hitting that 10k mark, which is really my goal month to month. On the other hand, it’s definitely unnerving to see how easily it can all disappear, so to speak. It really speaks volumes as to our need to find a more stabled, diversified income – our main goal in 2014.

New Projects

After settling down in Thailand a few weeks ago Vicky and I have been hard at work on some new projects. We’re constantly trying a bunch of different things, casting a wide net to see what works. I often talk about the 80/20 rule which says that you should focus your efforts on the 20% of things that are really paying off, however, many of our new projects have not proven themselves yet and therefore we feel somewhat compelled to do them all until we can clearly say that there is no future there. A few things we are working on are:

1. Continued online advertising efforts and finding new websites to purchase

And these are just the general, umbrella projects so to speak. Each has a lot of sub projects within them and we’re dealing with a lot of moving parts that are getting quite hard to keep track of. I hired two more assistants the other day to see if I could put them in charge of certain projects. We are now up to 9 total (5 general assistants, 4 content writers) and I still don’t feel like we’re getting all the things done I want. At the same time, I know we need to be strict with what we take on, and several of the things on that list have a few more weeks to prove themselves before we cut them off.

Google Update

I mentioned last month that a Google update wiped out half our fleet (which also had a seriously negative impact on our earnings), however I have been working hard with Vicky to replenish it and we invested a lot of our earnings from December into purchasing new domains and getting them up and running. It’s always risky doing this but I felt that the timing was good, following a Google update and not expecting another one for several months, and that we had to take some chances. Halfway into January it seems to be paying off.

Course Success

It’s been a few months since we started the course, how to make money on your travel blog, and I’m happy to report some success stories. For example, Gadi and Tun who have been working hard have published their first income report. Having spoken with a few other bloggers and seen their progress there are several who at a minimum have made their money back on the course and then some. Overall, I reckon it is about half of the 17 people who have signed up, who have gone from not making much or any money to profitable. Not bad after about 3 months! Still, there is a lot of work to be done to get the other half to this point. Largely, people came in at varying stages in their blogging career and some, being farther along, were at a stage where they were better able to make use of the material. Still, I think with another 3 months of work the rest of the gang will be able to pull through as well, and it will be a very successful experiment for most if not all parties involved. If you are interested, shoot us an email.

New Business Blog

Vicky and I have been talking about this for a while now and I’m finally taking the plunge to start my own business/entrepreneur blog, which I hope to release in March. Inspired by guys like Pat Flynn and Matthew Woodward it’s time to start writing about my passion – entrepreneurship. I think our last year has given us a lot of unique experiences and insight, which will make for a valuable blog. I have some great posts lined up and I’ve already started writing in preparation. The projects we’re currently working on are going to make for some great case studies. It’s going to be a lot of work, but I think it’s important to start working on our individual brand as well as a more long term strategy. ACoupleTravelers, we don’t think, is it, so we’re going to be focusing on AvocadoPesto and my new business blog.

Donations:

This month we donated $100 to Environmental Justice Foundation. The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) is a UK- based non-profit organisation working internationally to protect the environment and defend human rights.

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12 Responses to A Couple Travelers By The Numbers: December’13 Income – $9,610

Wow, you guys sure have a lot of projects going on!

Dave, I must say I’m looking forward to that entrepreneur blog of yours. With all the projects you’ve launched and the experienced you’ve gained by doing so I’m sure there is a lot to be taught.

I guess diversification really is the key.
And getting assistants.
I need me one as well:D

Hi! December was my best month ever, over double every other month. Traffic took a big upturn too, I made 22,000PV. I think it was mostly because Google finally updated and gave me my 3. I was one of the forgotten people stuck on 1 while Google sat on their hands for almost a year. It’s given me new enthusiasm and hope that blogging can actually keep us travelling longer. Money is running short, a family crisis forced us out of Asia so we’re on the expensive side of the world now. Great work as always guys, I always read these reports, even if I don’t always comment.

Glad to hear it Alyson I know you’ve been working hard so it’s about time that update came around, a lot of people were in that boat unfortunately. Unfortunate about those turns of events though I hope everything recovers in 2014

It’s good to diversify, so looking forward to learning what works for you. One question though – why are you changing your focus from acoupletravels to avocadopesto, as the former makes much more money. What’s your thinking behind this?

I’m amazed that you have so many projects on the go though. Do you think this affects the success of each project? I’m just wondering if focusing on fewer projects would bring greater success. But you’re doing great, so you obviously know what you’re doing. I just know from personal experience that I tend to lose focus if I have too many projects on the go.

We don’t see much long term benefit from the brand on acoupletravelers, whereas there are possibilities with avocadopesto since icky is actually interested in pursuing a food based career (food photography, recipe development, cooking classes). Neither of us are interested in a travel based business.

Yeah I have thought the same thing myself and if I had any idea which projects had the most potential I would focus on them, but since I don’t I tend to go through with all of them. Also remember that there are two of us.

Hello,
I wanted to congratulate you regarding your earnings.
I wanted to understand more un’attimino how do you manage several blogs (especially with regard to positioning) I manage type 5/6 blog but I’m going insane with regard to keeping the sites in the top positions (either because of various changes of google that for other factors).